On this day one year ago, Murodjon “DJ” Akhmadaliev stepped into the ring at the Boeing Center in San Antonio, Texas, at a high point in his career. The Muslim boxer from Uzbekistan had an undefeated professional record (11-0, 8 KOs) and held two world championships — the WBA and IBF super bantamweight (122-pound) titles — that he was set to defend against Marlon Tapales of the Philippines.

Twelve rounds later, Akhmadaliev’s undefeated record was gone and he was no longer a champion, thanks to a split-decision loss. As fighters do, Akhmadaliev disagreed with the decision, but he couldn’t do anything to change the result.

Since then, the 29-year-old has responded to his biggest in-ring setback with a dominant bounce-back win over Kevin Gonzalez of Mexico — an eighth-round TKO in December 2023 — and now has his sights set on reclaiming what he still refers to as his title belts; whether it’s avenging the loss to Tapales, or even if he has to go through Naoya Inoue, the multi-division world champion who is ranked in the top two or three of every credible pound-for-pound list. Inoue knocked out Tapales in December 2023 and is currently the undisputed champion at 122 pounds.

In order to get back to the top of the mountain, Akhmadaliev faces an uphill climb on which he’ll inevitably be cast in the role of underdog.

“I believe in boxing to take away somebody’s titles you have to beat them in the ring, I don’t think that’s what happened in my fight with Tapales,” Akhmadaliev told The Ring magazine in January. “Everybody saw that I was trying to take the fight to him most of the time. I was the one winning most of the rounds.”

He added: “My target is to take my belts back. I would love to fight Inoue or anybody else for the world title whenever I can have this opportunity. No matter who I will fight, I want to fight for my belts.”

Before turning pro, Akhmadaliev won a bronze medal at the 2016 Rio Olympics in the bantamweight division. In 2015, he took silver at the World Amateur Championships. He made his pro debut in 2018 with a first-round TKO against David Michael Paz, and ran off 11 straight wins — including a January 2020 spit-decision win over Daniel Roman to become WBA and IBF super bantamweight champion — before the loss to Tapales. He is currently 12-1 with 9 knockouts.

Akhmadaliev is No. 3 in The Ring‘s 122-pound division rankings. In the sanctioning-body rankings, he is listed No. 1 by the WBA at 122 pounds, No. 3 by the IBF, No. 4 by the WBC, and No. 6 by the WBO.